On May 24, campesinos from Ejido Huizopa, Madera municipality, in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, launched a protest occupation of the Minera Dolores company's giant open-pit gold mine, which they say has been illegally established on their lands. The decision to launch the blockade was taken after two ejido leaders, Enrique Torres González and José Armando González, were arrested by Federal Preventative Police, later released without charge. The local company director Carlos García Droguett said the occupation places at risk a $200 million investment in the zone. (Excelsiór [2], May 29) Minera Dolores is owned by the Minefinders Corporation [3] of Vancouver. (GeoMex.com [4])
A statement from Ejido Huizopa says Minera Dolores used "tricks" to gain title to the land from "corrupt leaders" of the ejido—but nonetheless received a permit from the Mexican environmental secretariat, SEMARNAT. The statement says another of their leaders, Salvador Gaitan, was the target of an assassination attempt earlier this year. Gaitian, a director of the ejido, is a veteran of the 1960s guerilla insurgency in Chihuahua led by Arturo Gámiz. (Received via e-mail, May 30)
See our last posts on Mexico [5], Chihuahua [6] and the mineral cartel [7] in Latin America.
